Tiny Glimmers #4 - Clueless Community Closet

In the future, we'll all have Cher's closet!

This week, I’m trying a different format and we’ll start right away with my letter from the future.

💌 Today's Letter from the Future is about making fashion fun again (without killing the planet or people).

Let’s take a trip to the year 2034…

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[Wednesday, March 1st, 2034, Frome, UK]

The Clueless Community Closet of Dreams

Today is the first of March, so I cycled down to the Fashion Library to pick up my clothes for the month.

I’ve been having so much fun all morning trying them all on for real. 👗👒

Of course, I tried them on virtually before I reserved them last week. Duh!

I have to admit, I still have to pinch myself every time I use the app, it's exactly like Cher's computer closet in Clueless! 🤩

Cher’s iconic computer closet from the 1995 movie Clueless. (Giphy.com)

My millennial friends and I joke that all our 90s teenage fashion dreams have finally come true, never mind that we're in our 50s now.

Actually, our local Central Community Closet (or Clueless Community Closet as we nickname it, CCC) is even better than Cher's from the movie.

Not only are over 95% of the clothes second-hand but they're also shared between 1000s of people in our community. And every time a new member joins, new items get added.

How it works

All the clothes are stored, washed and looked after in our new Fashion Library. Whenever you're ready to switch up your wardrobe (whether due to a change in seasons, your size, or just for fun) you can choose from 1000s of garments.

The best part is that you can try them all on the app and put together cute outfits. It lets you filter by size, fit, style, and materials and even recommends matching items.

It's all done with this really smart AI label system. Every garment has a chip that can be tracked and updated if it needs to be returned, washed or it needs to be repaired. And you can even see each garment’s story and who wore it before.

Delivery is easy too. You can pick up your clothes bundle directly at the library, or the Vogue Volunteers (as they call themselves) can drop them off via electric trike.

I like to do a few cycle shifts every month, it's so much fun to see how excited people are when they get their new clothes bundle.

And if you ever have a last-minute emergency, like a job interview or a fancy event, you can pay a little extra and get an outfit delivered by drone! I love watching people's outfits being flown in.

AI image of a drone delivering a pink dress. Could this be the future?

It only costs a few pounds a month to join the CCC and you contribute as many of your clothes as you like. We have so much more space in the house now that we don't have to store our whole winter and summer wardrobes.

The end of fast fashion

The CCC was one of our town's responses to the international crackdown on fast fashion in the mid-2020s. Once virtually all countries refused to accept any more fashion waste and the burning or destruction of clothing had been made illegal, we had to reimagine fashion and clothing from the ground up.

The fast fashion craze had produced enough garments to clothe the next 6 generations¹, so we needed to find innovative ways to bring all the existing garments into circulation and share them more fairly. Lots of cool textile waste and recycling projects popped up, too.

But the CCC is my favourite project because it brought joy back to fashion and getting dressed up.

I can't remember the last time I heard anyone say "I have nothing to wear".

People are experimenting and playing with colours and textures! We don't follow fleeting trends anymore, instead, it's all about exploring your personal style.

Long gone are the "fashion hauls" and single-wear outfits of the early 2000s. Today, social media is full of people mixing garments from different eras, visible mending tutorials and creative thrift flips. ✂️

And even though it's been years for most people since we bought new items, I can't even remember the last time I heard anyone say "I have nothing to wear".

Ugh, as if! 😉

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Now let’s travel back to the present, March 2024

What inspired today’s future?

This week’s Tiny Glimmer is somewhat of a love letter to Cher’s closet and fashion in general.

I have always loved clothes and getting dressed up, but the unsustainable nature of the global (fast) fashion industry has lately left me feeling guilty and anxious.

Plus, it can feel frivolous to waste spend time putting together outfits when the world is on fire. 🔥

So, I noticed myself going down the doom and gloom road of “great, now climate change has ruined fashion as well."

But the truth is that the Climate Crisis is a symptom of our unsustainable consumption habits (fashion, food, transport, etc).

And the more I learned about the fast fashion industry and its catastrophic impact on the natural world and people's health, the more I also came to realise how much potential for improvement there is. We need to reimagine our relationship with fashion from the ground up.

And that's exciting.

The good news is that there are already tons of innovative projects and organisations making a change.

Today’s letter was inspired by the local clothes swap I attended a few weeks ago. I love the idea of swapping and sharing clothes, so I took it to a whole new level and imagined what AI-powered peer-to-peer clothes sharing could look like in the future.

I hope you enjoyed it!

And I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

🍄 Signals of Change 🍄

• Digital wardrobe apps already exist, like Whering and Indyx (I love Indyx, if you want to try it, use my code "fckh7fc5fn1806" to receive $10 at sign-up)

• Tulerie and By Rotation are peer-to-peer clothing rental platforms but they’re quite expensive and high-end only.

• Big Sister Swap is the world’s first personalised swapping and styling service.

• Parcel delivery drones already exist and they have lower emissions than trucks.

• Technology still has a little way to go to allow for a true Clueless-style try-on experience.

• Vogue is also interested in fashion rentals and sharing.

📚 Tiny Bookshelf 📚

I’m listening to Worn: A People's History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser and it’s completely blowing my mind. Incredibly well-researched, it takes you on a trip around the world through the lens of 5 different fibres.

✨ Let’s imagine together! And have a chat in the comments✨

• Would you join the CCC?

• Did you ever dream of having Cher's wardrobe from Clueless?

• What would you like fashion to look like in the future?

Please let me know in the comments!

Have a lovely and imaginative week!

Jenny

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Last week I wrote a letter from the future about mending socks in the pub, you can read it here if you missed it:

Tiny Glimmers #3 - Socks and Pints

1. We have enough clothes to clothe the next 6 generations.